Exits: Outside the cave, the Lakers girls are dancing

A text exchange on the Lakers season, the frescoes of Pompeii, Denzel Washington, being humbled, whether it's possible to cover LeBron James in a novel way, while Dan Woike goes to vote.

Katie Heindl: When you look back on this Lakers season what is the through line that comes to mind now vs the one you anticipated going in?

Dan Woike: Hmmmm, I think I went into the year thinking there would be some awkwardness as the team tried to marry whatever was left of the LeBron era and whatever was starting with Luka Dončić. Maybe there’d be tension. And because of injuries, it was never about that. It was more about time and patience…and then when it seemed like they finally figured it out, all their pets heads started falling off. Do they have movies in Canada. Is that a reference you get?

KH: Is it Pet Sematary?

DW: Dumb and Dumber

KH: Trying to think who is like the evil baby who comes back from the dead

Jim Carey went to my high school!

So that sort of counts

DW: It’s not like it wasn’t dramatic at times. The Lakers are obviously moving in a clear direction and LeBron James is obviously not the future. But it’s all built out of common sense. Like, he’s gonna be 42! It’s Luka’s team — but LeBron just happens to still be really really good. It’s an incredible conundrum that they haven’t really solved.

KH: What was the most challenging part for you?

DW: Personally?

Or covering them?

KH: I suppose either in covering them, or continual roadblocks you noticed. Frictions?

You can’t say injuries

DW: How many times can you write that LeBron James is awesome without it being repetitive?

KH: True. Or write in new ways about LeBron, period.

DW: He’s old. He’s great... He’s great for how old he is.

There’s not a lot of art in that.

I’m not sure we’ve had a pro athlete written about/discussed on TV more than LeBron James.

You just have kinda accept that you’re not gonna cover a ton of new ground with LeBron. Like, he’s not going to express some secret that he’s been holding onto for 23 years about his pregame routine or anything.

KH: See I would have that hope, being around a team day to day

“I’ll be the one to crack the code” etc

And to be fair you guys have a pretty good rapport, you crack jokes

He shows you his phone

DW: With other guys you get it — with him, at this stage, it’s simpler. We talk about him being a dad. We talk about golf. He’s spent 23 years talking about basketball.

I try to avoid it.

KH: I wonder when the last time was he got a question about basketball that surprised him?

You should ask him that on Media Day

DW: I’m not sure what about basketball still stimulates him that way other than competition. He’s done everything, seen everything, played against everyone.

KH: Honestly that’s the most succinct I’ve heard anybody put it

Also succinct argument to him just saying see ya next season

DW: “Just to see if I can” seems like the motivation more than anything else

KH: I do sometimes fantasize about different personas LeBron would adopt just to switch it up

Like when people came back from summer vacation a goth

Trying to think what that could be in basketball

DW: I was friends with a girl in high school named Jenny. She was a year older than me, we both went to college out of state and she told me her name was “Jen” now.

Or Jenna

Can’t remember

KH: Yeah like that, but whatever the playing equivalent is of going from Jenny to Jen

DW: Like what if LeBron dedicated his entire summer to playing like Sam Merrill?

KH: Or Psycho T

My dream.

DW: He kinda did that this year with the third option stuff.

KH: I did actually appreciate his grumpiness this year.

I was just talking about this with Louisa [Thomas]

It was refreshing.

DW: He can be a wonderful grump.

KH: Because she said Wembanyama doesn’t bullshit, how Kobe and LeBron and Jordan did.

And how that’s probably what’s going to make people dislike him before they dislike him for basketball reasons.

(I think people will stop liking him because he’s smart, but that’s a depressing tangent)

But LeBron isn’t bullshitting anymore. It’s really fun.

DW: I was talking about this before or after Game 7, about how most great NBA players have some level of performance in their personas.

One that came to mind who felt truly authentic — Allen Iverson. Everyone else has a little storytelling in them. Wemby included.

KH: Ok let me begrudgingly steer this gently back to the Lakers — You said the direction is Luka, but I don’t really think it’s so clear?

DW: How so?

KH: In as much as a person can be a direction, and by extension, Luka can be… stop and go.

DW: The only way to get the best out of Luka is to put the players around Luka that hide his weaknesses and maximize his strengths. They are 100 percent going to try and do that.

KH: But with Luka you also need to convince him to stay interested.

I kind of parallel him with Narcissus at this point? Like if you put towels over the mirrors you’re probably good.

This sort of even looks like him:

Wikipedia

DW: Basketball all seems too easy to him sometimes — it’s why the coaches invent games and stuff to keep him stimulated.

KH: I saw some of those murals in Pompeii, they are insane.

DW: I like that this is you steering us back to the Lakers.

KH: I was going to say I don’t want to infantilise him but also his brattiness is pretty childish, so.

I can always use mythology to get back to basketball. The Lakers especially.

DW: There’s some of that — but I think some people around him have seen him mature since the trade. He was really disciplined about his diet and workouts last summer. He entered this offseason already adopting the same. We’ll see if he sticks with it, but the care factor about that stuff seems higher.

KH: Yes we all saw the Men’s Health cover.

You can loosen up a bit, you’re on the record but we’re still riffing. That was a real Dan on the radio take.

DW: When he hurt his hamstring, people were worried he’d gain weight. And he was cover Luka when he got back.

I mean, people mature at different stages. It wasn’t like Jokic was a body guy his entire career.

KH: I do find it such a bummer everyone polices his weight.

DW: I exercised like 15 total times in my 20s.

KH: True, same. Staying awake til 4am five nights of the week kept me pretty fit.

What do you feel like JJ Redick learned this season?

DW: He was like 5 percent less psychotically intense, which was progress.

KH: Still don’t love how he handles pressers.

I think there was a bit of humbling. Do you think that’s fair to say?

DW: He’s addicted to it though. Like he went to Duke and everyone hated him whenever he went and he kinda liked it — even if he’s spent a lot of time on working on his psyche since.

KH: I think he really hates losing, and they lost in some pretty boneheaded ways.

DW: I think JJ has a supreme confidence in himself but it still open minded enough to listen to others. But I don’t know if “humbled” is the word. I think he knows he can coach.

KH: He would never admit to being humbled. It’s like when someone drives by you and splashes you with a dirty puddle.

DW: There is a thing about wanting it so bad though that you squeeze the life out of it. It’s a tough balance to strike.

KH: You are objectively humbled, even if you still try and walk it off.

DW: I am not humbled

lol

Oh, the puddle victim.

KH: Were you humbled when Denzel sat beside you?

DW: I talked to him like we were old friends!

KH: I know I was so jealous

All I would’ve done would have been talk to him about Gladiator 2.

DW: I’ve got a great story about that for the next time I see you.

KH: Excellent.

Do you think G-Wiz is going to win his lawsuit against Jaxson Hayes?

DW: At the risk of being deposed, no comment.

KH: Do you think it’s ever possible for the Lakers to exist in the present totally, and to be taken at face value in the present tense?

Because I think no

Because of the gravity, the pomp and production, the Lakers as like, ethos, or legend, or lifestyle, versus the actual team as it stands on any given night

If it was a New Yorker cartoon it would be two cavemen doing allegory of the cave, but they’re both in Lakers gear and the shadow on the wall has a Lakers hat on

And then outside the cave, the Lakers girls are dancing.

DW: Great question — I’ll respond in a sec (Editor’s note: Dan went to vote)

I think the Lakers past and futures are tied for better or worse. They can always get a star because they always got stars. They will always win titles because they always one titles. That’s a strange place to be in and makes little victories harder to enjoy.